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zalenaPeople have been trying to get me to read this book for the past several years. I kept wondering why I'd want to read a book narrated by an autistic person. Someone finally wised up to the fact that they would have to give me a copy of the book in order to get me to read it. They did, and it worked. I've finally read the book and I'd say it'd be hard not to like the book. It has a lot of extraneous information about space and logic puzzles to keep the reader interested. Very gimmicky, but it works.
The basic plot is not as interesting. It's about an autistic kid who tries to solve the murder of a neighbor's dog. It's about his experiences being autistic. There were moments where this brought some insight about the "differently-abled," but by the end of the book it was wearing thin, especially because it's easy to see how difficult it would be to live with someone who is autistic and missing basic people skills.
Autism is currently a fashionable childhood disease the way ADHD was several years ago. Unlike ADHD, there's no quick medicinal cure. The current trend seems to be towards behavioral therapy. I wish I understood more about diagnosis and treatment. I've been introduced to a lot of seemingly normal children whose parents are convinced they are autistic.
"You don't see it because you don't live with her," one parent said to justify her draconian disciplinary procedures. "I know it must seem harsh, but she's autistic and this is the only way to keep her in line."
This parent had diagnosed her own child and come up with her own method of treatment. I wondered how much more damage her discipline would do than to let the child's supposed disease go untreated.
In anycase, bad parenting also plays a part in this book. In fact, I rather wondered why child services didn't have a thing or two to say about appropriate guardianship of Christopher, the autistic child. It's clear that even though Christopher doesn't have "people skills" and cannot easily read the emotions of people, he is impacted by them and has emotions of his own.
The most interesting character in the book for me was one of Christopher's special ed teachers Siobhan, who does a great job explaining things to Christopher, bridging the gap between the ordinary world, autism, and the other special ed students, most of which do not have the same sparks of genius as Christopher. Part of me felt that I might be more interested in seeing the story from her perspective.
Overall, I don't think I'd recommend the book to others. There's a reason books like this are best sellers. They are generally interesting and inoffensive. You could recommend them to your aging aunt or your best friend. But it didn't light my fire. The only memorable things about the book were the gimmicks, and it wasn't entertaining or enlightening enough to merit more praise. The limited emotional range of the main character as determined by his "different-ability" was not only exhausting, I lost interest in it by the end of the book.
However, I dp think it's interesting that the publishers were successful in packaging and selling what is essentially a YA book to a much larger audience.
The basic plot is not as interesting. It's about an autistic kid who tries to solve the murder of a neighbor's dog. It's about his experiences being autistic. There were moments where this brought some insight about the "differently-abled," but by the end of the book it was wearing thin, especially because it's easy to see how difficult it would be to live with someone who is autistic and missing basic people skills.
Autism is currently a fashionable childhood disease the way ADHD was several years ago. Unlike ADHD, there's no quick medicinal cure. The current trend seems to be towards behavioral therapy. I wish I understood more about diagnosis and treatment. I've been introduced to a lot of seemingly normal children whose parents are convinced they are autistic.
"You don't see it because you don't live with her," one parent said to justify her draconian disciplinary procedures. "I know it must seem harsh, but she's autistic and this is the only way to keep her in line."
This parent had diagnosed her own child and come up with her own method of treatment. I wondered how much more damage her discipline would do than to let the child's supposed disease go untreated.
In anycase, bad parenting also plays a part in this book. In fact, I rather wondered why child services didn't have a thing or two to say about appropriate guardianship of Christopher, the autistic child. It's clear that even though Christopher doesn't have "people skills" and cannot easily read the emotions of people, he is impacted by them and has emotions of his own.
The most interesting character in the book for me was one of Christopher's special ed teachers Siobhan, who does a great job explaining things to Christopher, bridging the gap between the ordinary world, autism, and the other special ed students, most of which do not have the same sparks of genius as Christopher. Part of me felt that I might be more interested in seeing the story from her perspective.
Overall, I don't think I'd recommend the book to others. There's a reason books like this are best sellers. They are generally interesting and inoffensive. You could recommend them to your aging aunt or your best friend. But it didn't light my fire. The only memorable things about the book were the gimmicks, and it wasn't entertaining or enlightening enough to merit more praise. The limited emotional range of the main character as determined by his "different-ability" was not only exhausting, I lost interest in it by the end of the book.
However, I dp think it's interesting that the publishers were successful in packaging and selling what is essentially a YA book to a much larger audience.
